On April 24 2007, I brought a new laptop (Acer Aspire 5100) pre-loaded with Microsoft Vista - Home Premium edition from my local Circuit City store for $669.00 + 6% tax. There was a $100.00 mail-in-rebate to make the deal sweeter.
As a previous owner of a Acer products (Acer Aspire 3000 laptop in 2005 and 19" LCD monitor this February), I found the products to have good performance.
I must admit, I see to have the incredible (bad) luck of being stuck with a lemons first time around when it comes to buying Acer laptops. Fortunately for me, Circuit City readily exchanged them with some inspection and replacements have worked very well. (Let me know, there is anybody out there that shares the same experience.)
First time, it was hard disk crash within 24 hours after the purchase. This time around it was the Wireless Ethernet Card. It kept dropping connections several times within span of a minute or so. Finally after a week of fighting the beast with replacing drivers, configure settings, I gave up and got a replacement from Circuit City, this weekend.
The wireless connection in the new laptop stayed strong but the internet connection was dragging its feet like a snail bearing a 2-ton iron core. Some websites just did not come up at times - like google.com or msn.com. Both IE and Firefox exhibited the same behaviour.
Add to frustration the machines with Windows XP and Linux ran just fine. After much research on the web the blame game continued on the cause. Possible suspects: the preloaded Norton AntiVirus and Internet Security because of phishing filters and double firewalls and IPv6 configuration conflicts. Turning them off including Vista's own security features did not help.
Though the problem looked like a typical DNS issues but I was not willing to accept reasoning as a cause for this. Two different machines with two different OSes on the same network were working just fine.
After two long nights, I decided to take the route to configure DNS server entries manually. I looked at the auto configuration DNS provided by the router and it included just the IP address of the gateway (or the router itself).
I decided to manually configure the DNS entries which were provided by ISP on the laptop itself and Voila !!! It started to working like a breeze.
So in summary -
Symptoms:
Slow Internet connection on Microsoft Vista (in my case Home Premium Edition).
Possible Cause in my case:
My wireless router was overloaded with DNS requests and could not service them all.
Additional causes
Multiple Phishing filters and firewalls.
Solution:
Check using ipconfig/all command on Vista command prompt to check the DNS server entry. If you only see an single entry for the wireless router, it is time to manually configure the DNS entries for the Wirless Card. You can do that by configuring the TCP/IP v4 settings.
I have additionally disabled the IPv6 support on the Wireless card and have the Norton Phishing filter off. They did not make any difference without the DSN entries.
This worked for me and hopefully, it should work for you as well.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
War of the third kind - Reflection - 4 years later
I don't consider myself much of a technology prophet, but I found this document which I shared with the top management of my employer about - 4 years back...
Dated: July 14, 2003
Wars of the third kind
The signs
Though it may not be so evident today, may be not in coming weeks, but it’s in the horizons. All signs point to another war of computer architecture. The common factor as it has been in most of times, in the recent – Microsoft (and few others) vs. rest.
This time, it will be in the area of “on-demand” computing.
One Microsoft way, server virtualization
Microsoft (recent acquisition products from Connectix Corp) and VMware are pushing the concept of server virtualization. The concept is one powerful machine (usually multi-processor system); many servers.
Bring up servers with blink of the eye. Need a mail server, Boom! It’s there. Need a web application server, Boom! It’s there. To naked eye one machine. To the network monitor different two servers each with its own network stack, it own resources – memory and hard disk.
The reason, the powerful machine, if used as a single server, is under utilized. Why not just more applications on the server? What happens when you want the reliability of Linux for your web server and ease of Microsoft Active directory services to manage users? What about some legacy application so critical to the organization running on Windows NT?
Think! Grid computing
The idea is “super computing power at the cost of peanuts” from IBM, PolyServe and others. The method, several machines networked to give the feeling of a single all powerful mega-server. The concept has been around for a while and implemented to varying success. But selling MIPS as commodity on demand is a slightly new one. With increased supports for more operating systems and protocols this looks now looking as viable option.
The conclusion
War as it is… the front lines yet to be drawn, pitches yet to be made. But one size does not fit all as many would let us believe. Soon, we as users will make choices and it may well be combination of both. How about a grid computing network supporting server virtualization? Now that’s triple sundae with cherry on top.
Dated: July 14, 2003
Wars of the third kind
The signs
Though it may not be so evident today, may be not in coming weeks, but it’s in the horizons. All signs point to another war of computer architecture. The common factor as it has been in most of times, in the recent – Microsoft (and few others) vs. rest.
This time, it will be in the area of “on-demand” computing.
One Microsoft way, server virtualization
Microsoft (recent acquisition products from Connectix Corp) and VMware are pushing the concept of server virtualization. The concept is one powerful machine (usually multi-processor system); many servers.
Bring up servers with blink of the eye. Need a mail server, Boom! It’s there. Need a web application server, Boom! It’s there. To naked eye one machine. To the network monitor different two servers each with its own network stack, it own resources – memory and hard disk.
The reason, the powerful machine, if used as a single server, is under utilized. Why not just more applications on the server? What happens when you want the reliability of Linux for your web server and ease of Microsoft Active directory services to manage users? What about some legacy application so critical to the organization running on Windows NT?
Think! Grid computing
The idea is “super computing power at the cost of peanuts” from IBM, PolyServe and others. The method, several machines networked to give the feeling of a single all powerful mega-server. The concept has been around for a while and implemented to varying success. But selling MIPS as commodity on demand is a slightly new one. With increased supports for more operating systems and protocols this looks now looking as viable option.
The conclusion
War as it is… the front lines yet to be drawn, pitches yet to be made. But one size does not fit all as many would let us believe. Soon, we as users will make choices and it may well be combination of both. How about a grid computing network supporting server virtualization? Now that’s triple sundae with cherry on top.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Ahh..Power of Dual Monitors
It was long, hard fought battle, but finally I persisted. I managed to buy a 19" LCD monitor. I had to guilt my significant other after buying her a diamond earrings set for Valentine's day.
Consider it a Valentine's gift. Besides, the price for the monitor - Acer AL1916 was pretty affordable - $159.99 (+ 7% Sales Tax = $171.18) from Staples (on Feb 18/2007). Most online sites on that day were selling the same monitor for $215+.
Add to that most online reviews gave a two thumbs up to this monitor and I must say, I am pretty pleased.
Oh...for those who know me (and who will sooner or later), I am a laptop user (IBM Thinkpad T41 loaned to me by my employer, FTR - For The Records i.e ). So how do I enjoy power of the Dual Monitor.
Fortunately Windows XP makes it pretty easy. It was literally plug and play.
As I type this, I use the external monitor as the primary monitor at 1280 x 1024 resolution and the monitor of the laptop as an extension at 1024 x 768.
I must admit, I sometimes have to tweak the configuration to make the external monitor the primary one, but is worth the struggle.
Has it made me more productive? Only time will tell.
Has it increased my coolness factor... sure by 10 folds... :)
... Enjoy people !!!
Consider it a Valentine's gift. Besides, the price for the monitor - Acer AL1916 was pretty affordable - $159.99 (+ 7% Sales Tax = $171.18) from Staples (on Feb 18/2007). Most online sites on that day were selling the same monitor for $215+.
Add to that most online reviews gave a two thumbs up to this monitor and I must say, I am pretty pleased.
Oh...for those who know me (and who will sooner or later), I am a laptop user (IBM Thinkpad T41 loaned to me by my employer, FTR - For The Records i.e ). So how do I enjoy power of the Dual Monitor.
Fortunately Windows XP makes it pretty easy. It was literally plug and play.
As I type this, I use the external monitor as the primary monitor at 1280 x 1024 resolution and the monitor of the laptop as an extension at 1024 x 768.
I must admit, I sometimes have to tweak the configuration to make the external monitor the primary one, but is worth the struggle.
Has it made me more productive? Only time will tell.
Has it increased my coolness factor... sure by 10 folds... :)
... Enjoy people !!!
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